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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25127362">bleed and fight for you (make it right for you)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/achalk/pseuds/achalk'>achalk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(or therapy), Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s04e15 Self Control, F/F, First Kiss, Jemma Simmons Needs a Hug, Mentions of Lincoln, Requited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:53:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,641</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25127362</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/achalk/pseuds/achalk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Give me your hand.”</p><p>“Don’t touch me!” Jemma snarls, recoiling (and that hurts in ways Daisy doesn’t want to think about – stings more than the bite of two bullets, more than Lincoln choosing a martyr’s death over a life, a future, with her - more than everything before this).</p><p> But they have to know, and this is the only way. “Give me your hand, I’ll quake you - not to hurt you. <i>Not to hurt you.” </i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jemma Simmons/Skye | Daisy Johnson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>170</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>bleed and fight for you (make it right for you)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title from Dear Theodosia from Hamilton<br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daisy’s hands are going to fall off – or at least that’s what it feels like.</p><p>She’s been using her powers for an hour (maybe? She’s lost track of time) without her gauntlets, and it feels like her bones are going to snap at any moment – the bone-deep ache is way too strong to ignore now. <em>Might as well enjoy my last moments with arms, </em>Daisy thinks. Yeah, things aren’t going well.</p><p>In fact, things haven’t been going well for quite a bit, now – so far, she’s faced a roomful of evil robots who look exactly like her, then fought more evil robots who look exactly like her most trusted people in the world.</p><p>She’s not sure what she feels when she quakes Mack into the wall, with force that would break his bones if he weren’t a robot.</p><p>He’s not Mack. (<em>It’s not Mack</em>, May’s voice reminds her. <em>It</em>.) Daisy has quaked the real Mack before, too, but that wasn’t <em>her</em>, either.</p><p>She thinks it’s a different part of her that’s running now, to regroup, assess the situation, evaluate, determine the most realistic outcome – probably May’s training kicking in, fuelled by the pure adrenaline running through her like lighting. (Don’t think about lightning.)</p><p>If she wasn’t exhausted then she most certainly is now, panting and breathless and terrified as she slides down the wall into some kind of sitting position. <em>Remember your training</em>, is all she thinks as she sees Fitz on the security camera feed – lying still, drenched in a puddle of his own blood. She desperately wants to tear her eyes away, because his blood is everywhere, but she also <em>can’t</em> look away because his blood is<em> everywhere</em>.</p><p>It’s not Fitz. Not him. It. Just like Coulson, just like Mack – this is not them.</p><p>She’s choking back sobs, because it’s all terrifying – seeing them turn and look right at her through the screen - and then she’s running again, like it’s some primal instinct drilled into her – but then she supposes it is, now. (This is what she’s become, isn’t it?)</p><p>Next is dread, when she sees the bloody stains on the floor marking a path into one of the storage rooms – terrified confusion when she first sees Simmons – and then an uneasy, almost-relief when she hears Jemma speak, the trembling of her tearful voice that makes Daisy pretty sure it’s really her.</p><p>She’s bloody and bruised, her voice shaking but her hands even more, and Daisy sees a bloodstained knife. She’s not certain that it’s Simmons – the real Simmons – but everything she says is sounding rather like her. Then again, the robots have stolen their brains, so of course Simmons sounds like Simmons – so, great, back to square one.</p><p>“There’s no way to know until they kill you.” Jemma’s starting to slump against the wall, face pale, the blood and sweat matting her hair to her face. <em>No way to know...</em></p><p><em>Think.</em> There must be a way, surely she doesn’t have to kill anyone - “Okay. Give me...”</p><p>Time - what she really needs is time to think this through, or just for Jemma to believe her – but both are in short supply and she’d better come up with something quick because Jemma’s going to cry soon and she has to prove to both of them that it’s really her –</p><p>“Give me your hand.”</p><p>“Don’t touch me!” Jemma snarls, recoiling (and that hurts in ways Daisy doesn’t want to think about – stings more than the bite of two bullets, more than Lincoln choosing a martyr’s death over a life, a future, with her - more than <em>everything</em> before this).</p><p>They both have to know, and this is the only way. “Give me your hand, I’ll quake you - not to hurt you. <em>Not to hurt you</em>.” Not like everyone else.  </p><p>She’s getting desperate now. “Just enough to feel your bones, to make sure they’re real bones, not made of metal.” She’s almost whispering now, because there’s only so long before they’re found, and she <em>needs Jemma.</em></p><p>“It’s me!” Jemma exclaims, and now there are tears afresh as she debates with herself – and somehow that reassures Daisy the tiniest bit, knowing Simmons doesn’t know either, because maybe –</p><p>“I can prove that I’m not one, either. An LMD wouldn’t have inhuman powers, right? That way we’ll both know.” Daisy nods vigorously as she says it, like she can convince herself too.</p><p>Jemma seems to consider for a moment, but it’s only a moment, and then she’s snarling “don’t touch me!” again, and Daisy knows that’s because Fitz had said something reassuring too and Jemma probably believed it, and, well, look how that turned out.</p><p>She has to do this, though, and as she stands there, she hears doors being thrown open and heavy footfalls on the cement. People are coming - time’s running out.</p><p>She hears the knife clatter on the floor the moment she grabs Jemma’s wrist, feels the rough wall against her side as she pulls them both to it, hears Jemma’s breathy ‘<em>oh thank god</em>’ in her ear. She quakes and feels Jemma’s bones, and knows that Jemma feels her in equal measure – feels that they’re <em>real</em>.</p><p>She feels Jemma’s hands on her bare back, clinging like Daisy’s her lifeline, sobbing; feels Jemma’s hair tangled between her fingers; feels Jemma’s warm breath on her shoulder as they hold each other up, and Daisy’s just <em>relieved</em>.</p><p>They stay like that and it might be for seconds or for years, Daisy wouldn’t know – but they only separate when Jemma’s shaking noticeably, and Jemma lets herself slide down the wall, softly grunting in pain. Daisy patches up her leg as best she can, trying to at least prevent Jemma losing more blood than she has already, and as her hands work to tie up the makeshift bandage it occurs to her that this is always Jemma’s job. The bandaging and medical stuff that Daisy doesn’t know the words for has always been Jemma, while Daisy is usually the one being fixed up. The thought makes her hands shake a little more.</p><p>Then Jemma’s eyes are fluttering shut, and Daisy hates seeing Jemma like this but she knows (hopes, really) that there’ll be time for rest, just not now. Right now, they need a plan of action, a solution – but Jemma seems to be giving in to the pain and Daisy can’t have that now. In this moment, they’re all the other person has got, and Daisy is going to get Jemma out of this.</p><p>Jemma is mumbling dejectedly, and hope’s all they’ve got now - and even if Daisy herself is slipping into despair, she’ll do her best to keep Jemma afloat.</p><p>“There’s hope,” is what she says, and tries to lace the words with some kind of confidence that she definitely does not feel right now, but fake it ‘til you make it, right? “Hope that our team is still alive. So we have to try.”</p><p>When Jemma’s eyes meet hers, she almost believes it.</p>
<hr/><p>She almost tells her then, as she looks earnestly at Jemma, but decides against it at the last minute and diverts with something about Fitz. Not the time.</p>
<hr/><p>“So, we fight our way through the trained military personnel, then the ultra-powerful android doubles of our friends, somehow make it to the zephyr (which we can’t fly), to escape the base and try to plug our minds into an alternate reality!”</p><p>Yeah. Not what they signed up for. “Okay, well, don’t say it out loud, because that made it sound way worse. Let’s just do one thing at a time, okay?” <em>Deep breaths, Daisy. Come on.</em></p>
<hr/><p>Simmons is giving up, saying something about Fitz and how she can’t think, and it's all feeling rather helpless. “We can’t fight them, Daisy, it’s too much, it’s all too much-” Jemma slides further down the wall, and Daisy needs to <em>fix this</em> –</p><p>She’s going to save Jemma. “I will. I will fight them.”</p><p>She won’t remember what they said, later, only that Jemma talks about a lot and the hope’s draining out of her, Daisy can see it. She doesn’t say those three little words that she’s been thinking about – but she tells Jemma that it doesn’t matter she doesn’t have gauntlets, that this is not a sacrifice play, it's not about Lincoln. It’s important that Jemma knows - Daisy will fight, and she will win, and it will be for <em>Jemma</em>.</p><p>And maybe she doesn’t need to say it because she knows Jemma understands – sees it in her eyes, hears it in the “<em>I can’t lose you too</em>,” that comes out almost last-minute, like she <em>has</em> to say it, in case this is the last time they might be like this, and Daisy feels the urge to say <em>something</em> too.</p><p>“…the one thing I’ve known – the <em>whole</em> time – is that you and me belong together.”</p><p>Jemma looks at her for a second, then.</p><p>Jemma kisses her, and the rest of the world doesn’t stop but it seems to fade away, and then <em>this</em> is the only thing that matters.</p><p>Jemma kisses her with a kind of desperation tinged with longing, and now Daisy really feels hope that they will get out of this, because they have to. This is what they’re fighting for.</p><p>They pull away and rest their foreheads against each other, crying, panting, breaths intermingling.</p><p>“I will beat them, I promise you<em>. I will beat them</em>.”</p><p>Daisy only looks back once, as she walks out the door, and sees Jemma’s face, her eyes. The unspoken words seem to linger in the air between them – and, <em>god</em>, she wants to say it, but not here. Not like this.</p><p>“You come back to me, Daisy. You come back to me,” and Daisy hates the way Jemma’s voice breaks just then.</p><p>And she doesn’t say it, but she thinks Jemma knows.</p><p>Instead:</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>A promise.</p>
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